UN peacekeeping operations by Defence Forces legal, says O'Dea

Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea said he had no difficulty in publishing the Attorney General's advice about the legality of the Defence Forces' participation in international peacekeeping efforts.

As the issue of the legality of the operations arose again following the publication yesterday of the Defence (Amendment) Bill, Mr O'Dea told Labour's defence spokesman Joe Costello that "if I can obtain the Attorney General's detailed legal advice I do not see any difficulty in publishing it".

Rejecting suggestions that the Defence Forces' presence in Kosovo might be illegal, Mr O'Dea said he was "fully satisfied that our participation in Kfor in Kosovo is in accordance with the provisions of the Defence Acts relating to such deployments".

The new Bill revises wording for deployment of forces but Mr O'Dea said this was because of changing UN structures. The legislation will be debated over the next two weeks and is expected to be passed before the Dáil's summer recess. Mr O'Dea said the Government "acts on the advice of the Attorney General whenever troops are being deployed abroad. When we are deploying troops abroad we do so in accordance with our domestic legislation. Successive Attorney Generals' have advised us that if the wording of the resolution says 'authorised' we are covered".

Mr Costello said that "we might as well not have this legislation if the Attorney General is so sure about it".

"Not really because the legislation covers other matters as well," Mr O'Dea replied.

The Labour deputy believed "it is definitely a precautionary piece of legislation that is trying to close the loopholes". He said the new legislation corrected the existing situation by including "established, mandated, authorised, endorsed". Clearly the Minister admits that he was wrong all along."

However, Mr O'Dea said that the Attorney General's clear advice was that where the UN authorised another party to operate a peacekeeping force, "we are covered", by existing legislation.